A Safe Place in the Mind
by natalee moon
Summary: After 3 months of torture in prison Mal is unreachable.  It is up to Inara, with the most difficult of her arts, to bring him back.  MalInara
1. Part I

Part I

Simon read the file again with an attempt at an objective eye. He knew most of its contents by heart but the horror of it still struck him anew.

Inara had the file and all the medical reports forwarded to him. He had every x-ray, every drug test, every surgery on video and typed. It was astonishing that Inara could wield such influence simply by her position.

He looked over the file again. Three months. He'd spent three months in that prison. They hadn't been able to piece together all that happened but from his injuries and the substances found in his blood they could surmise a great deal.

Burned. He'd been burned.

Whipped. It must have been daily.

Cut. Beaten. Starved. Poisoned.

Worse, he had been sedated with a muscle inhibitor so that he could not fight back, could not even tense his muscles against the pain.

When they'd been able to reach him at last and he was released he'd had broken bones in almost every place in his body. It had taken a month in the on site hospital just to release him from intensive care. No one could see him for risk he contract an infection in his weakened state.

_Victim escaped mortality by hours _the report concluded. _Victim is physically rehabilitated but completely unresponsive. No damage to brain tissue detected. _

He was awake but he would not eat. Would not sleep. Would not speak or move. He did not respond to pain or pleasure of any kind.

Simon realized, as the on-site physicians had, that with the pain threshold surpassed by so much, his mind had simply disconnected from his body. The consciousness, in instances of extreme torture, retreated to a safe place in the mind. Simon hoped to learn what the place had been and bring him back.

There was only on person he knew who could see into the mind and discern such information: River.

And so, physically healed, he was returning to the ship where River waited, eager to help him. He was coming home at last.

At that moment River appeared in the doorway to say the medical shuttle had just waved.

"They're docking. He's here."

Simon rose to follow her to the cargo bay. At last, after all their waiting and worrying, the Captain was coming back onboard.


	2. Part II

Part II

None of them soon forgot the sight of him in that chair, staring blankly. Zoe swallowed hard. Kaylee's hand went to her throat. Jayne faltered and looked away. It was so much worse than seeing him broken or bleeding. Jayne would have given anything to trade him in for a version riddled with bullet holes but barking out sarcasm and orders as he bled his way to the infirmary.

They all stood frozen in that initial moment of horror, even River whose hand was clamped over her mouth, her eyes pinched with pain and torture that Simon hadn't seen since Miranda.

He realized it was up to him to keep calm and break the first moment. He was the doctor. He was the voice of command in this situation.

He stepped forward and collected him, thanking the medics and slowly pushing that chair towards the Infirmary.

Zoe seemed to regain herself when Mal was turned away from her.

"I'll take us out of here and set course for Sihnon," she told River, "You go with them."

River nodded and hurried after them. Then Zoe barked out order and purpose to the rest who gratefully seized on a chance for action. If doubling the engine output to hurry their trip to Sihnon would help the Captain, Kaylee would do it.

Jayne grabbed his tools and set about making Mal's quarters accessible by chair.

They all needed to keep busy until Simon and River came out with some kind of answer. Something real they could do to help him. Never had he needed saving like he did now. Never had they felt more helpless to save him. But it only made the want to save him that much stronger. They had the will, they only needed a way.


	3. Part III

Part III

The exam revealed he was conscious, though Simon could hardly believe it. He did not respond to any stimulus. He was physically healed, but he was still a mess. His eyes stared unmoving at some distant point, his breathing low, his heart beating steadily. His reflexes responded to tapping but he showed no awareness of the room or any sounds or sensations he found in it.

It was up to River, who sat quietly by him, hand in his, tears coursing down her cheeks.

Simon let her sit for a long while. So long the rest of the crew finally ambled out of their tasks, eager to hear any news.

Finally River emerged, pale and sad, to tell them what she knew. She was quiet for a long moment.

"What'd they do to him?" Jayne finally asked roughly.

River winced, that old wince Simon remembered from their early days on Serenity, when she could not escape feeling everything in equal measure.

"Awful things. Hurt him, cut him, burned him, starved him, then put poison in his food."

Zoe looked away. Hadn't Mal been through enough in war time? Why this? Why now?

"They drugged him so he couldn't fight back. They couldn't break him, no matter what they did, until they made it so he couldn't escape the pain."

Kaylee's hands were shaking and Simon sat down gently by her to take them in his own. River was confirming all that he had learned and concluded from his files.

"Did they break him?" Zoe asked after a long silence.

River shook her head, "So much pain. Too much. He had to break away." Her eyes were filling with tears, "He thinks he's still there, waiting…"

Zoe looked to the infirmary door, lips parted in horror, "He doesn't know he's home? He thinks he's still in that prison?"

River nodded.

"Where did he go when he broke away River?" Simon asked carefully.

River tried to smile, in spite of her tears, glancing tenderly to the Infirmary door, "To her. Always to her."

"You mean Inara?" Kaylee managed quietly.

River nodded again, "We have to take him to her, to Sihnon. That's where he went when it hurt too bad. Only she can wake him."

That put everyone back into motion. They were on course for Sihnon but only to rendevouz with Inara's shuttle. Now they would need to dock there and stay. Kaylee rushed off determined to get yet more out of the engine. Zoe flew back to the cockpit to guide course personally. Jayne stalked off to remove his handiwork on Mal's ladder, maybe Inara would need it at her place. Simon took the task of contacting Inara to tell her everything.

River wandered quietly back into the infirmary to sit with Mal again. She took his hand and leaned over to whisper, "No more pain now. You're safe. You're safe."

She knew he didn't believe her. Didn't know her. Was sure it was some trick of the mind.

She said it anyway.


	4. Part IV

Part IV

Simon waved Inara from the privacy of his room and explained to her that she need not ready a shuttle to dock with them, they were coming to stay on Sihnon instead. Inara had looked puzzled until he had added that River had thought it best. Then her features had settled back to the smooth, steady calm he knew so well. She was the most practiced and controlled woman he had ever known. Her manners a welcome port in the storm of his life after rescuing his sister. What a relief speaking with her had been in those early days. And she comforted, instinctively. He knew it must be a talent, honed but not entirely learned in her training.

Even now, after all she had been through, her face betrayed nothing. She arranged their stay in moments and relayed all the coordinates and instructions through to the ship.

"I'll have rooms for each of you if you wish. Everything will be prepared when you arrive. You're all welcome here, even Jayne." She said with a smile.

Simon gave a low laugh and it was a relief to have something to smile at again.

Inara was quiet a moment before asking carefully, "How is he?" her face finally betraying the strain.

She hadn't seen him yet, had spent all her time with officials in a sea of red tape, interviews, paperwork and reports.

She had claimed Mal as her own employee and produced documents showing him absolved of his crimes through his indenturement to her. Much like that long ago time at the train station.

Her lie had been convincing. She had gained immediate access to him when none of them could. It was she in his cell that first moment when he was near-dead and unconscious, his breathing so shallow it couldn't be discerned. She had betrayed nothing. In total composure had stated coldly, "What good is he to me in this state? For every bone you have broken, you shall pay!"

She'd fined them into near bankruptcy leaving Jayne forever in awe. She had got the Captain busted out of jail _and_ got them _paid_ for it. She could do no wrong in his eyes.

Only the best Doctors had seen him, she had assured Simon. But she had to hold her act through mountains of beaurocracy without being able to go to him or to show she cared.

Now her face finally showed her fear and exhaustion.

"Physically he's nearly recovered," Simon assured her, speaking carefully, "But he won't speak, or eat, or move."

He paused, gauging her reaction, "Did you read the files you sent me?" he asked gently.

She nodded once, "Most of them."

"River sat with him. Said his mind broke away to another place to escape the pain. He just hasn't come back from that place. He thinks he's still in prison."

She looked horrified at his last statement. He held her gaze, "That place he broke away to was you."

A look of dawning understanding overtook her face. She nodded slowly, "I understand and I think I can help him, if you'll leave him just with me for a while."

"Of course," Simon replied, then smiled at her, "I know you can help him."

Her mouth turned up gently at the corners, "Thanks."


	5. Part V

Part V

Simon found the Captain would walk with him when prompted and so they kept him as exercised as they could. But he would not eat. They could only inject him with supplements. And he did not react to their voices, though they all talked to him. He was thin and pale and frozen in his last act of self-preservation; A steady, unbreakable look on his face.

It was this look that Inara dreaded seeing the most. So much so that she had him wheeled into her room in such a way that she could see him but not vice versa. She did not want him privy to her first sight of him. She never had been able to hide her emotions around Mal.

And she knew, instinctively, that seeing him healed but unable to speak or move would be worse than seeing him broken and bleeding on that cell floor.

No one, no one would ever know what that had been like for her. No one would ever know what this was like for her either. That face, that beloved, forbidden, precious face with its irresistible fire extinguished was more agony than she had ever known. It could not simply be grief because he was not really hers, but that only made it worse.

But now was not the moment for her grief. She gave herself this hidden pause only. After this she must be ready, she must embrace that it was to her he had run in his pain and use it to bring him back.

It was a training she had studied long ago and thought never to use. A subject of interest to round out her classes in those early years at the school. And now, wouldn't Mal be horrified or perhaps just struck by the irony of it all? He had fought so hard against what she was, called it down and thought never to touch it. But it was Companion training, of a sort, that would save him.

The class had been titled some rambling extravagance of words "Pleasure for Pain: The Art of Healing Victims of Abuse and Torture with Love".

At the time, young and without knowledge of suffering, she had been open and willing to learn it, as the extreme end of what a Companion truly was, and what giving physical love truly meant. The class had covered a broad spectrum of violence and its aftereffects, detailing the reactions most personality types had to the extremes of pain. Pain had many forms both physical and emotional. Scars came in many forms, she remembered her instructor saying. The mind can separate from itself and it is up to the Companion to journey to that place of safety in the mind, recreate it and bring the victim gently, slowly, carefully back.

That education had been valuable but she had chosen not to take clients in need of such healing. It was too painful and she felt unqualified because she had no experience of her own to draw empathy from.

But now, after preparing her room, she had pulled up all her notes and the texts on that long ago class and reviewed them. Now at last, that great knowledge could be applied, coupled with her training and her personal tie to Mal she was suddenly ideally suited to help him, so long as she did it right.

She knew only that he was with her somewhere in his mind. It was left to her intuitions and her will to see how far with her he had gone.

She stepped out from her hidden corner and came up behind him as she wended her way through the room. Her hands gently came to rest on his shoulders, her voice warm and welcoming in his ear, "Hello Mal…"

She saw his head come up ever so slightly and felt the first unfolding of happiness in what felt like ages. She came round that chair with a wide, inviting smile on her face and in her eyes it was thankfully genuine because he had reacted, just a little.

"Come out of this chair and let me look at you," she said and pulled gently at his hands.

Simon had told her he would walk, but nothing more. Now he unfolded himself with little effort and stood, his shoulders neither slumped in defeat nor squared with his usual personality. His eyes stared past her, unseeing.

She slowly ran her hands over him, tenderly checking his muscles for strength and soreness. She had remembered her first rule. She had not broken physical contact with him now since the first touch. She needed to establish her presence and associate it immediately with pleasure in some way. She moved slowly, like a dream, because that is what he thought she was and that is what made her so safe.

He was nearly back to his old self, she could feel it, save for a few new knots in a few new places. The old ones were still there. She had counted them all in her time on the ship, without ever touching him, just watching, which side he favoured. Which spot he unconsciously touched when he was tired or worried. Now she confirmed that long ago study with her hands and found herself proved right on every count. At last she would smooth away those long-standing pains.

So she led him to the bed. Everything was already prepared. Her room smelled exactly of her old shuttle, she had made sure of it. Her creams and oils were at the ready. She took his clothes and laid him down on his stomach and he let her. She felt saddened when she knew he could not know yet it was really her or what she was planning for him. How many times had they laid him down, forced him and then drugged him when they couldn't and hurt him?

She tried to push those thoughts away. That couldn't matter now. All that mattered was that he was safe now and she must make him see that.

She took a deep breath, dipped her hands in her favorite medicated oil and set about making him feel better than he had in a long, long time. She would do it everyday, whether he needed it or not and she would take her time about it, massage every muscle and employ pressure points in his feet to clear his mind and shift his energy flow, gently luring him back to consciousness.

She started at his shoulders and worked her way down. That knot in the left shoulder blade, possibly as old as war times, took some work. That tender spot in his side, possibly from an old bullet wound, that place behind his knee he unconsciously shifted and worked when he was thinking at the table was finally explored and unwound.

She worked the base of his feet and sensed the places he still believed were in danger, still expected pain and worked at them for a long while, hoping to open that energy and release it, let his body tell him he could relax, he was safe.

But when she rolled him over his face was still blank and staring. He had not visibly relaxed. She covered his middle gently with a towel and tried to take heart. It was only the first day. She had months of torment and pain to undo.

She decided to approach the front differently. There were fewer kinks and sore spots to attend to so she focused all her energy on discerning where he liked to be touched. She wiped her hands and switched oils. This would take all her training. There were no obvious visual cues to encourage her. In fact, he would be consciously and instinctively guarding against her learning those secrets. But deeper still, a part of him probably expected her to know, a part of him dreamed that she knew how to please him.

She changed her breathing, shifted her position by him, started at his temples and listened with every sense in her body.

The head of her house would say it was a testament to her training how much she learned from that first study. But Inara herself knew better. It was a testament to her feelings for him. To the subtle, even unconscious study she had already made of him in her time on the ship. It was a measure of her desire to help him, to heal him; her need to see him again. It was an urge that usually existed in dissonance with everything else about her; that need to see him, hear him, know him. It was a call so powerful it carved out a second identity in her, a base, feral, uncertainty that called out from the shadows of her choice to serve as a Companion. Now those two identities struck a harmony of purpose and the strength of it filled the room with its power, its determination, its will and its weakness; its need and its love.


	6. Part VI

Part VI

Inara established her routine that first day. After the massage she took him on a long, winding walk through the gardens and up the mountain trails. She spent hours telling him about the various flowers and their meanings, laughing at what he would probably reply to some of them. She took him to her favorite look out from the mountains.

It was a favorite place of prayer for the Monks who had first established the various shrines and paths into the mountains, long before House Madrassa or any Companion house had come into being. It was believed to be ideally located in a place of absolute harmony. Ultimate concentration for prayer and meditation were thought to be available from it. All this Inara related to Mal and then added that the reason she liked it so much was that, at this particular time of the day, when you stood at the edge, you could see both the sun and the moon, positioned opposite each other and each seeming to govern its own sky, its own landscape. It made her feel she had found a place between day and night, that pause in time before the one became the other. It was her favorite place to come when she had problems to work out, or when she wanted quiet. It was a place to clear her mind, to plan, to remember and to dream. It felt safe somehow. Safe from even the relentless force of time.

She pulled Mal against her side, wrapping a warm arm about his middle and leaning her head into the crook of his shoulder to look out at it for some time.

He never responded. His eyes never searched that beauteous landscape. His arm never curved to hold her. But on their fourth trip up, he very quietly said her name. She never flinched, though her heart started to race and she had to concentrate to even it out again. She turned warmly in that half-embrace and touched her face to his neck with affection, rubbing tender fingers up and down his back, beneath his shirt.

After that afternoon walk she took him back to her room for a late lunch. She had coaxed and coached him into eating that one meal, but not the others. She couldn't have said what it was about it that made it acceptable in his mind to respond. Perhaps it was the most relaxed part of the day for him. Whatever the case, she cut up fruit, and bread and cake and fresh cold cuts and fed them to him in bites.

She had first tried those dreadful protein bars from the ship, thinking familiarity would help, but she realized quickly it was probably what he was fed with and poisoned with in prison. So she switched tactics and searched out the most delicious food she could find reasoning that if she was the haven of his mind, that haven would have the best food he could think of.

She looked up his old hometown and found what foods were common and took her best guess at his favorites.

After lunch she took him out on her veranda and read to him. Careful, easy, thoughtful pieces. Stories and poetry about ships and sailing and freedom.

She made her tea and talked to him, endlessly, never breaking that contact, hands gently tracing in and out of his palms, the inside of his wrist, that spot behind his ears. All her collected places of pleasure from her hours of massage.

She bathed him in the centre of the room in a tall, luxurious, four-legged tub filled with warm water and musky bubbles whose scent had always put her in mind of him. Often she would climb in with him, bare and inviting.

But after that one lovely mention of her name on the mountain he fell silent and unresponsive for nearly three weeks.


	7. Part VII

Part VII

Night had been the worst time for Inara at first. Mal did not sleep. He simply lay staring upwards all night. It haunted her and she found she too could not sleep. But she must. She was no good to him exhausted. She had finally settled into a pattern of sleeping by him, one arm and one leg slung over and head nuzzled into his neck.

She had walked him into the bathroom that first day and explained where it was. He found his way in when he needed to but often wouldn't come out and she would find him braced over the sink, staring into the mirror with a terrible look on his face.

Three weeks after he arrived she felt him get up in the night and head to the bathroom. She half-sat up and waited. Sometimes he came right back out, but not always.

A few minutes later though, he walked out, heading back for the bed where he paused, his head turning ever so slightly as he looked at her, really looked at her. Her heart froze in her throat. She couldn't have said anything if she had wanted to. She held out her arms to him and he crawled onto the mattress and over to meet her. Then he lay down and wrapped his arms about her and buried his face in the hollow of her throat before drifting gently into his first sleep.

Inara choked back the urge to cry. The relief was so enormous no amount of training in the world could have hidden it. She held him and stroked his hair and kissed his forehead and listened to the steady, even breathing of his sleep and felt silent gratitude escape her like a prayer. _It was working._


	8. Part VIII

Part VIII

The shift was very subtle after that. When Inara woke the next morning Mal was already awake and staring off again. But his attention would wander back to her now. His arm gently pulling her closer on that mountain lookout. His eyes closing in pleasure during his massages, the occasional mumur escaping. He would fall asleep to the sound of her reading. And sometimes, when she spoke, he looked right at her and she often faltered, trying hard to keep going, to smile as though it were perfectly normal.

She knew she was getting closer and upped the ante. She wore less clothing and got closer during the massages. She kissed his throat and behind his ears when he lay down to sleep. She showered him with more affection, spoke more of how happy she was to have him near, and took her bath after his, while he sat on the bed facing her. Then she climbed out bare, slowly, waiting for some sign of reaction, for that precious moment he looked into her eyes again.

But it was slow to come. She realized he was starting to believe he was in his dream again, but cautiously. Part of him still would not give in. No matter how pleasurable she made the massage or what she wore or how she touched him, he showed no sign of desire. His body simply did not react. She drew the line at actively seducing him, it was too much a compromise of his will like the torture had been. But she had hoped climbing out of the bath nude would be enough.

And finally it was. It was well past four weeks since he'd arrived. The crew had taken a small job after their long leave on Sihnon. They needed to keep busy while they waited. It was too hard, even on a planet of paradise.

Inara had settled comfortably into the routine of looking after him. Long massages, long walks, lunch, reading, taking those baths, sleeping while he clung to her.

But this night, when she took her bath and then stood to step out Mal looked right at her. She finally heard her name again. She smiled, left the towel untouched and made her way between his legs as he sat on the bed, looking at her with dreamy, disbelieving eyes. His eyes held hers, looking up as she took his shirt by the shoulders and slipped it off. She felt his hands, shaky and uncertain, come up to gently rest at her sides. Then she leaned down to kiss him and he let her. She knew she only had half of him, the real Mal would be leading as much as he followed. But this was Mal deep in the recess of his frightened mind, afraid to find such pleasure as he hid from pain. He let her kiss him, strip off his clothes and lay him back, touch him where she hadn't before. He gazed at her in unwavering wonder as she straddled him, seducing him gently as though he were new.

Then she slid their bodies together, watched him arch up, his eyes closing involuntarily, his mouth forming incoherent, grateful sounds. She pressed against him tenderly and knew she would never have him like this again. This was the part of him that was innocent still, though he denied it, and appreciated her with youth and awe and gracious humbleness. This was the part that received.

He lay moaning beneath her, hands coming to rest oh-so-lightly on her hips and she took him to the end at a steady, unhurried pace.

How she had dreamed of having him. Careful, forbidden dreams she had squirreled away in her mind and buried beneath practiced indifference and smokescreens of sarcasm.

Perhaps this was the only way she would ever have him. For tonight, it was enough. They lay tangled together, his breathing still labored with pleasure and she felt him drift off in her embrace.

Tonight, in whatever way he existed, he was hers.


	9. Part VIIII

Part VIIII

It was late and deep into the night when Mal woke up. He jack-knifed to a sit with a gasp and tried to look everywhere at once in his panic. Every sound was like a touch and he flinched.

Inara was a moment in waking but once she did she was wide awake. She sat up carefully, "Mal….Mal you're with me."

He looked at her then and she watched his senses right themselves and confirm her. Saw him inhale and smell the familiar incense. Saw his eyes assessing the room, her face, hair, lack of dress. Then she watched a dawning comprehension overcome him.

He was still flinching and jumping about and she realized he thought he was there now. He thought they were drugging him, tying him, readying him.

She hurried to him and took him by the arms, "Mal, you're not in prison, you're here with me! You're safe! No one can hurt you!"

He looked, if possible, more terrified, "Must be gonna hurt," his voice was low and pitiful, "You feel so real!"

Suddenly he stiffened, as though shocked up the spine and she heard him gasp out, "Oh God…"

Then he collapsed against her, slipping down into her lap, his voice broken and agonized, ""Nara it hurts, it hurts, it hurts….oh God it hurts…."

This was it that place in his mind. Her heart wrenched in her chest. This was where Mal had gone to save himself, to hide his fear and pain. He had confessed it all to her, just as he was doing now.

She clutched him fiercely, "I know it does Mal, I know, but don't worry, you're with me now, you don't have to feel any pain anymore. You're safe."

He clung tight, shaking and whimpering for a long time before finally collapsing into sleep. Inara herself was much longer in drifting off. She had Mal's ear to her chest, listening to her heartbeat as he slept, hand stroking his hair and back.

She had a lot of thinking to do before she slept. Her feelings were cut and raw, that identity in the shadows bold and brilliant and staring her in the face.

She loved him. And it was not a gentle thing. She had always believed two people made their choices, aligned their lives, or discovered their compatibility and once pursued grew a long and lasting bond of love. But not with Mal.

This love came in the face of an impossible reckoning of compatibilities. It came beneath conflict and animosity. It created a battle of wills so fierce and relentless it had kept her awake at night on the ship. It forged a bond of need so strong it left tides of fear in its wake. What if something happened to him? What if she couldn't see him anymore?

Its truth wrought agonies of realizing she could never taste this thing that had birthed such blinding desire. This thing she longed more than all else to taste. It demanded sacrifice of all else to be tasted and they were both too stubborn to leave themselves utterly behind.

This love wanted them to change. She had always known that but now she realized she was a fool. It had already changed them. That new identity, pressed into the love until they were one, burned within, waiting for its chance, peering out from the mask of arguments and insults. All of it had been a show, a façade. When it came down to those moments of absolution they both revealed themselves in a gesture, the past, the battle of wills, the fierce clinging to their first identity forgotten.

She would give anything to save him. She would give her own life without a thought.

And in the offering over these past weeks to save him she had lost all her protection and replaced it with experience. She had tasted the forbidden in its own way. She had wanted to be with him before. Now she had physical memory to back-up what it would feel like.

The agony of that reckoning waiting for her when he was gone made her realize she had given her life to save him in a way. She might never recover either identity after this.

And still she held him to her and felt how precious he really was. All her yearning to see the universe and know and travel to reaffirm her own identity and expand the horizons of her mind had been for naught. All her training and experience with men making it easy to categorize and dismiss those connections of the mind and the flesh. Men were all the same. Men all wanted essentially the same thing, so much so that it blinded them and made it easy for her to offer and receive without losing herself. There was never any challenge. People all blended together. The universe was the only substance with mystery.

And then had come Mal. She need never see another corner of the stars. There was no one in all the universe like him. And she had lost herself, and shockingly, a part of her rejoiced in that knowledge. Here was a challenge. Here was her match. Here was what that urge to see the universe had really led her to.

It had led her to him.

The dichotomy of agony and release she felt at finally letting that floodgate of love open was all for naught as well though. When Mal really did awaken, he would realize what she had done and how she had been able to do it. He would be horrified and treat it like a betrayal. It would be the ultimate of insults and falsity to him.

He would go farther away than he ever had before.

Her days would change from spending every moment with him to empty, absent, Companion routine. At that moment it felt unbearable and she clung to him tighter, for once seeking comfort instead of offering.

_Don't leave me!_ She heard her mind scream to him and felt a hot wave of shame wash over her. She wrapped herself around him, closed her eyes tight and willed her mind to empty of thoughts and go quiet in meditation.

Finally, she slept.


	10. Part X

Part X

Mal woke slowly. He felt like he was coming out of a long, molasses-taffy of a dream. He could hear a voice in his head telling him he was still dreaming, that none of this was real, that he was going off to that place in his mind again when the pain came, but the sensory overload of his surroundings made him turn away from that voice and wake up fully.

He could feel that he was not cold, or hungry, or in pain. This room smelled of Inara's shuttle but also of oils and outdoor scents he could not place. The bed he was in felt comfortable. He could see the sun coming in even through his closed lids. He felt his body stretch and swallow and realized what had really woken him: He felt good.

He opened his eyes and looked around carefully. It really did look like he was in Inara's room on Sihnon.

It was then he realized he was holding Inara. He sat up slowly, gently and watched her wake. Her eyes looked lazy and glazed for a moment but then snapped to attention. She did a rapid study of his face and then asked in a quiet, hesitant voice, "Mal?"

"Inara," He replied, "Where am I? Is this Sihnon?"

A strange look came over her face then, an explosion of relief and a myriad of emotions he could not clearly discern.

"Yes, you're on Sihnon."

"How long I been here?"

She hesitated, "Nearly a month."

His eyes widened and he took a deep breath before saying, "Thought I was still in that prison! How'd I get out? When did I get out?"

"Two months ago," she said gently.

"Two months!" He exclaimed.

"You'll start to remember if you just let it happen, don't try to force it." She assured him. Joy was still dancing madly in her chest.

He shifted, assessing himself, "I'm healed up good," he said, "In fact, I don't think I've ever felt so good. Few spots fixed I had long before that prison!"

She finally smiled at him, a familiar expression and he smiled a little in return, "You got something to do with that?"

She nodded, "I gave you a full massage everyday."

He looked away ruefully and a little shyly. It was then he realized he was naked and so was she. She was still tangled in his arms and felt his hands stiffen where they held her.

"Are we….naked?"

She gave a low laugh and murmured a confirmation.

"Did we….?"

She nodded again and his eyes were like saucers.

"You'll remember, I promise, just relax and let your thoughts sort themselves out." She assured him.

But he was shaking his head, "Seems to me, getting you naked is something I would not soon be forgetting."

There was a hint of a flirt in his voice that made her smile and she let herself enjoy it. He let her pull away and cover up before turning serious and asking in a low voice, "How did I get here?"

She had thought carefully of how much to tell him and when. There would be time later to explain to him how she had removed him from that prison.

"The doctors at the on-site hospital and Simon himself explained to me that you were in so much pain your mind separated and went to a place it considered safe to protect itself. But even after we got you out and healed you, you would not recognize us or respond. You thought you were still there. On Serenity, River sat with you."

She watched him listen and dawn with realization.

"She told me that safe place in your mind was me and I would need to recreate it to wake you. So I did."

He looked down for a moment before saying shyly, "S'true. When it hurt, I thought of you, and it helped."

He said it simply and yet, it hit her hardest that way, broken out of him honestly. She couldn't speak.

He was back to himself rapid-fire though and asked, "How'd you know what to do?"

She cleared her throat, "I studied a course in my schooling on healing victims of extreme pain and torture. That helped me a great deal."

He looked right at her, "It was part of your _Companion training?_

She nodded and there was a tense moment as she watched him barrel through betrayal, pride, anger and resentment.

"I never thought I would use it." She added, "It was too personal. But I was so relieved I had taken it when I realized I could use it to help you."

He turned thoughtful at that revelation and she felt her heart in her throat. She wanted him to know she was sincere and it seemed impossible to prove it.

"Bet you'd have known what to do without it," he said in a raw voice and dared to reach out and take her gently by the sides of the arms to pull her closer, "Thank you."

"Welcome back," she said softly and her voice shook, betraying her, "I missed you."

He leaned his face down to brush with hers. He could not remember anything yet, but knowing what had happened and feeling his emotions on the raw from his waking made him bold.

For the moment he did not care that it was Companion training that had saved him and what that might mean. He looked in her eyes and confessed that shadowy secret he had worked so hard to hide from her for so long.

"Ain't never gonna be no other woman in my mind like you were 'Nara. Only you. You're the only one."

Her eyes clouded with emotion then as she memorized his face, alive, alight with emotion and just for that moment, hers.

Then she met him halfway and kissed him. There was a long, warm passing of minutes as they tangled up, sliding arms and legs about each other to get close again. There was so much emotion released in the surrender that she shook and found him shaking too.

Her hands worked softly on him though, in all those remembered places and she watched his eyes close in appreciation. But on her third journey to the sensitive arch in his spine they opened and regarded her with surprise. He realized she knew all his places and couldn't figure out how.

She smiled and her voice came out like honey but just for him, "I massaged you everyday, and I paid attention."

His mouth turned up at the corners—Oh God to be out and free and smiling again, the joy of it hit him fiercely, made it impossible to hide his wanting from her, to hide anything. For now, their masks were on the table and he knew it. For right now, this long buried thing between them could not be denied. He wondered only if he could return half that pleasure; If she knew, after all her training, how to really receive it; If this could possibly mean anything to her when every other time it happened, it did not; If it had meant anything when it happened the first time, that time he could not remember.

Her shaking made him realize a part of her was raw and open and out of control. A part of her was meeting him head on, his equal, his match—an impossible match that burned and ate at him, but not this morning. This morning he would satisfy it at last.

He kept kissing her and could not break away, even as their hands wandered and their bodies pressed closer and closer making promises and stroking pleasure until it was unbearable.

He had wanted her like this, until it burned to fever pitch. Had buried it deep and tried to reason it away. But the relief of her when he had been in pain, the safety of just imagining her and dreaming up what pleasure he could find, made him realize he had misjudged and mistreated this attraction since the start. But all that had been for his own protection, he knew. After this, how would he cope? How would he walk away without her when she refused to come?

He pushed those dark thoughts away. He'd had enough dark thoughts these past months for the rest of his life. His body and mind craved pleasure, needed to throw themselves into it and be lost and find enough faith that they existed to go on again without crippling fear.

And for right now she was his, he could feel it to his bones. She was touching all the places that made him crazy, had learned them with all her ridiculous, fancy schooling. But she had learned them for him. Because it was him. She was using them to express how she felt and to give over. Her motives were finally altered and he savoured that.

He could feel her tenderly pushing herself up to slide over him where they sat but he caught her under the shoulders, lifting her easily, and laid her back on the bed, watching her hazy surprise with a low laugh, "Seems to me, you have the advantage," he leaned down close to her face, "You know all my favorite places and I don't know any of yours. Guess you'll have to tell me."

She smiled a smile he had never seen before and it hit him like a punch, "A girl can't just give up all her secrets!" she teased and he broke into a real grin then.

"You want me to figure it out on my own? Alright then, this might take a while…" and that said he dove his face somewhere between her earlobe and shoulder so that she let out a half-squeal half-laugh and beat on his back with mock-fists.

The next few hours were the best of her life.


	11. Part XI

Part XI

Mal spent another week and a half with her on Sihnon, traveling through that routine and slowly remembering parts of it as though they were a dream.

Inara took him to the mountain look-out and he found he really liked it too. They spent hours on that overhang and it was so sweet to just sit there, arms about each other, looking out quietly on that pause between sun and moon.

Inara had to force the massage on him at first but once he realized where it usually led he anticipated it with boyish eagerness and even got her to surrender a book on massage so he could try and awkwardly return the favour.

He re-read all she had read to him with genuine admiration and she saw the shine of his intelligence refined through education. He had read much of what she had chosen himself back home. His mother had been a fine home school teacher.

Inara insisted the time was necessary for his healing. Mal pretended to believe her and soaked up pretending she just wanted him to stay—not realizing she really did.

They both knew what loomed on the horizon. They both knew the crew deserved relief after their anxious waiting.

But turning away from that finally released love was unbearable in those first days. No matter that it was a false joy without understanding to make it real. No matter that they avoided speaking about anything of consequence.

Just being together, just touching, just spending their days with only each other was enough at first.

Inara knew she could not explain to Mal that she had never had a lover like him before. Not one for just herself. Not one she could take from instead of giving only.

So she didn't tell him.

Mal was trying to imagine going back to Serenity without her and he couldn't anymore. He knew it was impossible but he wanted both. He wanted his beautiful old ship with its haven of freedom. And he wanted this improbable woman who had filled his days and nights with pleasure and called him home to himself.

But after a week and a half they both knew the words waiting to be said could no longer be denied. So as they ate a lazy lunch together by her window Mal finally dared, with gloomy dread, to broach the horizon.

"How did the crew get me out of that prison 'Nara?"

She paused, almost imperceptibly, but after his time with her he had finally learned her nuances. She was reluctant to tell him but resolved to be truthful so she would.

"They didn't. I did."

He looked at her curiously, "You did? How'd you do it?"

She finally explained to him everything she had done watching his eyes widen. She described the endless paperwork and how she fined the prison and earned Jayne's admiration. It made Mal laugh and she kept it light.

But when she finished he looked at her with gratitude, "I owe you more thanks than I thought I did."

She could see him reviewing the facts in his mind then pausing, "Who actually collected me? It wasn't you was it?"

Her face betrayed her. This was the one thing she hadn't wanted to tell him. He moved closer to her, "Oh God 'Nara…."

She shook her head, trying to keep herself steady, "I was there the first moment in your cell. You were on the floor and I couldn't tell if you were bleeding. I had to let a medic tend you while I argued with the Head of the Prison."

She had planned to keep it short but once she started all the rest tumbled out against her will, "I didn't even know if you were alive and I had to pretend I didn't care!"

She told him what she had said and how she hadn't actually seen him again until he arrived at Sihnon. And then she dissolved into humiliating tears. She tried to push him away, "I'm fine. This is silly!"

But Mal grabbed her fiercely, "Don't you dare try to bury this! I can't imagine what you've been through. 'Nara if I had to take you out of a prison broken and bleeding and so close to death it could go either way and then look after you in a state like I was in…..I don't know what I'd do. I think a part of me would die."

She met his eyes then and they knew. All those unspoken 'I love you's from this past week and a half had narrowed to this one that hung with silent chorus in the air.

"It did," she breathed, "It did. Mal, what would I do if something happened to you?" She had his face between her hands and watched it pinch with emotion.

"What would I do?" she said again helplessly.

Mal took those smooth, beautiful hands in his own, "Same thing I'll do when you tell me you can't come back to Serenity."

Inara's face registered surprise but he gave her no time to speak, "Always thought I just wanted you because you were something I could never have." He admitted, "But I was wrong. I just…want you. And it seems like an impossible thing. Freedom means something different to both of us. All the ways I want to use to show you how I feel mean nothing to you because of what you are. I have nothin' to offer you, not really."

"You think I can't see what is genuine?" Inara choked, "You think I put you in the same category as…as _clients_? Mal, I _see_ what you feel for me and it's precious to me. What you offer is something I can take. You can't know what that means for me. And I never thought you would offer it after what I did. I thought you would hate me for using my training to save you."

"Weren't your training that saved me," he said gruffly, "It was _you_. It was you with me in that prison, not a Companion with fancy learning, not an untouchable woman always out of reach."

He watched her eyes fill up with tears, "But is that what you want?" he asked, "What do you want me to see: you or the companion?"

"I thought there was only the companion," she confessed.

His face changed then. She saw his thoughts clearly as he realized it: for him there had only been the one identity as well, after the war. He had carried, it, embraced it, protected himself with it all this time.

She smiled, "And then I met you."

He smiled back, "And then I met you," he echoed with humour.

"Ask me to come back with you," she said in a low voice, face turning serious.

His eyes widened like saucers, "What?"

"You heard what I said."

"Doesn't mean I believe it. You really mean it?"

Her face changed then and he never questioned her again.

"Come back with me to Serenity 'Nara," he said softly, "I don't want to go home without you."

She let herself get wrapped up in his arms then, "You are my home," she confessed, "I never thought I would have one. I never thought I would need one."

His face changed then, a subtle shifting towards happiness that never wavered after that.

"You are…" he struggled to say it, unsure of the wording and she read it in his face, that happiness.

"You make me happy," he finally conceded, "Never thought I'd want that again, or find it. I promise we'll compromise. I'll make sure I give you what you want too."

As if walking away from Sihnon was a huge sacrifice.

She shook her head at him, her face saying she already had everything she wanted and something burst inside him, though he wouldn't tell her, tried to keep it hidden, but failed. A nice glow of joy was showing in his eyes.

She touched his face and then they stood and walked back inside. It was time to call the others. It was time to go home.


End file.
